Good morning everyone to the Base Camp. Maroon from Copenhagen at COP15.
We're right here at the Fresh Air Centre. We meet some of the world's best bloggers out here.
We have today three of them from different parts of the world. Let's get them out round of introduction.
I am Tadarko, I am from Italy.
I am Adela, I am from Romania.
What if you have been monitoring the COP15 proceedings and I generally get a feeling that it has been
heavily dependent on political will. It seems to be missing out here.
What are your ideas back from your own experience in your country?
To say how heavily dependent are we on this for political will. Do you have any suggestions on that?
As part of the European Union, Romania is basically going with the flow of this European Union.
And environment is not seen as very important to me. There's something incredibly important to Romania.
And if you go out in the streets and out 9 out of 10 people would say that climate change is just some abstract thing.
But there are NGOs that deal with this aspect too.
And they try to educate the Romanian public and they try to explain the importance of climate change,
what happens exactly, what would mean if the temperatures would go up with 2 degrees or 4 degrees and so on.
And there already are some effects of the climate change and the global warming in Romania
because the southern part of the country has already been dealing with desertification.
And there have been studies that proved it's because of the global warming.
And the Romanian scientists and the climate scientists especially working with the old government
now politics is a mess in Romania but they were working with the old government
for a plan to try to improve the southern part of the country and to make the needed changes to decrease the desertification process.
Well in Italy policy makers don't really care about the environment whatsoever.
It's possibly the least important priority for them.
We have a few movements dedicated to the protection of the environment but they are mostly ignored
and they don't have space on national media which is 90% controlled by the government or by its will.
So basically nobody knows anything and almost nobody cares.
If the European Union reaches an agreement we will most likely not follow the agreement
and pay the fee as we did with 90% of the laws that they passed on the European Union.
We are already paying the fees for not following pollution agreements, purification of water,
freedom of speech, conflict of interest.
Basically we don't follow any regulation whatsoever and we just pay the penalty.
So it's a pretty sad, sad situation.
We are always at the bottom of the European countries.
So I came here as one of the very, very few who basically has any interest in climate change
and climate environment globally.
So much like Romania we just pretend to go with the flow but then we don't.
I hope more serious countries like France, Germany, the UK will push for a more stable agreement
and then eventually we will be obliged and compelled to follow these instructions.
I hope the European Union will force us to do something because if it's up to us
the government will never do anything.
Well, I think the agreement then when it comes to policy, Brazil is the same thing
and people actually don't care for the environment in Brazil because we have a lot of natural resources
so we are not concerned with wasting them.
And regarding the Code 15, one thing that actually caught my attention
is that many politicians are saying that Brazil is not going to pay anything
but I think that many times Brazil hides itself in development nations
and we don't do what we have to do.
Because we are one of the richest nations in the world.
We are becoming a really good country in the international scenario
and yet we don't come with real policies.
And people in Brazil, as I said earlier, for example, we have, as we were talking earlier
many people are constructing and they are first meeting a lot in my city Salvador
and they say they are constructing green neighborhoods but they are killing many species
they are under threat and they keep doing the same thing every year, every year, every year.
So it's pretty much like that.
It's been a green wash for the parts of the countries that we are talking about.
It's the same that we are seeing in the Code 15 negotiations today.
There is no political will or any leadership amongst them
to come up and say if we are willing to do this voluntarily or together as a group.
So how do we address this?
Do we take this question back to our communities and citizens
who probably have seen the effects and borne the effects of climate change
and question them back as to how we can be empowered to do this?
What are your thoughts on that?
Well, I think political will never comes by itself.
It comes from the pushing from the public.
So one way is to do information and get serious about that
and that's why I'm filming a documentary about how to empower the everyday person
to fight climate change, to fight pollution, to do something for the environment
and how to change your life like ten points that you can actually do not some abstract thing
like join some movement like Greenpeace and they will do the job you have to do it.
That's your responsibility and that's what I'm doing.
I'm making a documentary.
I agree with the record that everything has to start at the individual level.
So yeah, it's cool that I go and join some association or NGO
but if I join and I do nothing, then it's nothing.
And I also agree with him that if everybody in the world liked the event on the 24th of October,
the 350 event, I think it meant a lot and it had a huge implication.
I believe that it's not convinced politicians
but I'm sure that at least the way people acted all around the world
made some more politicians think about what it would be
if they would actually come up and pledge to CO2 cuts
and they made them think because in the end they are people more than politicians
they are also human beings and if they screw up, then they screw up for them too
not just for the rest of us.
So this is what I believe everything has to start at the individual level
with we have to recycle, we have to take proper care of our ways
we have to do the little things first and then to grow and do the big things after.
Yeah, I think there is one issue that we have to talk first
it's because in places like in Europe we have a certain quality of life
that we can fight for things but in places like Brazil or China
we face many different challenges, for instance in places like in the Amazon
you can't properly fight climate change in the first station
because your life is under threat, if you do this you are going to be killed by many people
so it's quite difficult to address this issue in the developed nations
and many journalists as well, they face censorship in these developed nations
so we have to focus on how does the government, the role of the government
in giving them a proper quality to do this work to raise awareness of the population
Yeah, I think he addressed a very important issue because all of these solutions
I find that people like me find are focused on how developed nations should behave
in the context of climate change and environmental pollution
but nobody addresses the issue how a developing nation should behave
because they have a very different way of living
and that's something that simply nobody knows
because it's unexplored territory
we did the industrial revolution and then we are facing consequences
right now they are where we were 50 years ago
and nobody knows what directions to take
some people say they have to take the same direction
so make the same mistakes and then go back
and I think there has to be a better solution
I think climatologists, anthropologists, economists should really think about this
and find a solution for developing nations
Yeah, and probably the solution would be for developed nations to pay
and help developing nations to grow by using sustainable alternatives
instead of helping them build windparks
that's just a general example
instead of helping them by paying and funding their development
to use hybrid cars and stuff like this
instead of doing just like Federico said
living developing nations to do the same mistakes
the industrialized countries already did and the mistakes that brought us here
Examples through rural India as well as urban India
where we've gone back to a traditional ways of conserving nature
and ecology around us
some of the examples I can give you in Rajasthan
which is one of the most deserted states of India
that thousands of years ago
the visionary Raja Maharajas or the kings or the prince
they have had several ways of protecting and conserving water
because that's a desert
and those structures are being revived today
to remind the communities that this is the way to go about
getting back to our roots and saying that we don't continue this exploitation
so I have a question for
is money the only solution that the developing developed countries have to offer
what are the other directions that they can lead for us
because as you said they've already trended the industrial revolution path
We lead by example
we gave you the bad example and you are following it
you are building huge power plants
connections, flight connections
which we should not put our money and resources on flights
it's just not working
there is magnetic levitation technology, superconductivity
I mean we are using 20 year old technology which made the plant worse
and then developing nations are just doing it right now
because they are following the example of the American way of life
the European way of life, it's not working
we have come up with 2010 solutions, not 1965 solutions
we should give a different example
and I think that's how we solve the problem
a different example
and I also agree with what you said
there are places where going back to the roots
is what they have to do
not what we have to do
for example developing nations are the producers
so we buy the north buys everything from the south
and we all know the concept of fair trade
and if fair trade would be more important
so if producers would be paid at their actual value
not just some pennies that makes those countries even more poor
if producers would be paid at their rightful price
they would have money to grow as individuals
and also as a country
and living in a developing country
I think gives you the right to choose how to go on
and how to make your country grow
it doesn't give any developed country the reason to choose for you
because it's easy to say from Romania as a developed country
it's not really developed, I mean not 100% but
living in a developed country doesn't give me any right to advise you
how to make your country better
in terms of sustainable environment or sustainable living
you can see the examples where we went wrong
where we've done good and you can decide for your own
but without the money, if you don't have the money
and if things don't like now with south
producing everything coffee, fruits and so on
chocolate and so on
and north buying everything for nothing
then this is not the right way to grow it
so basically this is what I think
I agree with both of them
we have to transfer technology, we have to invest in research
we have to think that to live in a city is not the only way to live
because in Brazil many people want to leave the countryside
and go to the cities because many times the cities have the best opportunities of jobs
the best opportunity is the quality of life
because as you are aware of the social really qualities in Brazil are really really huge
so set up living in the rural areas where you can get a third
of what you would get in the cities
some people prefer to go to the cities and to work there
so we have to give a perfect quality of life to them in the rural areas as well
if we don't do that, there will be no deal
there will be no chance of changing, fighting climate change
in other issues as well, there are such issues
I think we've had some very interesting conversations
of what the north can be for the south and all of that
and I want to end this with one last question
what has been your real motivation or inspiration to really come to COP
what is the message you're going to take back to your countries and your fellow citizens
about your experience?
well I'm interested in the social problems more than the political problems
because politicians and all these politics don't seem to come to a proper agreement
and I basically came here to learn more about India and about Brazil
and about Denmark and other countries
and see what people from locals think
and how they are planning to change at first at the individual level
and how they are dealing with climate change in their everyday life
from when they wake up until they go back to bed in the evening
and when I go back to Romania I hope that if I find something that would fit to my way of life
I would adjust it and I would implement it because from my experience
last time when I came here I talked to different parts of the world
and I went back and I talked to my friends and I was telling them
you see it's good to recycle
I'm not the only crazy one who in Romania almost nobody recycles
and I'm not the only crazy girl who does this
and after two weeks they started to put paper away and plastic away
and it was nice, I mean to see this is not necessarily as an influence
because if I would have influenced them they would have started doing this before
but seeing this at me and then when I came very excited to hear that others are doing this
it was great and when I see that they changed too it was even better
so I hope to go back and see the same now
I came here to gather as much information as I could
especially for my documentary
and basically to find out more and to find people
I could really connect and learn from
that's the main reason I came to the Cup 15
I don't think any agreement would be fine
so my main motivation to come here was to meet people from different parts of the world
that think the same as me
and want to save the planet and care for their relatives and friends
because I think that's what it is all about
we are here because we care for some people
and we want to have a good life
and a message I would take to Brazil is that there are people doing this
there are people trying to save the world
and there are people who really care about others in the planet
we are here to save the world
if I can just add one thing
I'm not here to save the planet
the planet is fine
I mean we are not
the ones who are going to die is us
the planet will stay
will hear itself after a couple of million years
we will just go on
and we will just be one of the 99% of the species who just disappeared
so it's us that we are going to save the planet
and make a big conversation
thank you so much for all your enlightening thoughts
and we wish our audience back at the base camp in New Delhi
found this conversation useful to know what the youth across from other parts of the world
think about addressing the climate change and influence of politics in it
thank you so much for your time
